After four months, most of the shock -- but none of the dismay -- of Kansas University's latest graduation rates for athletes has worn off for Paul Buskirk, KU's associate athletics director for student support services.
Four months ago, Kansas learned that just 43 percent of its athletes from the most recent reporting class graduated.
The 13-percent decline from the previous year was reported extensively in the media, including the Journal-World.
On Sunday, the numbers came back to haunt Buskirk when the NCAA presented its graduation report to the U.S. Department of Education.
"Am I surprised today?" Buskirk asked. "No, but I've had four months. Still, it's much lower than where we were last year, and it is a major concern."
KU's 43 percent ranks 10th in the Big 12, ahead only of Oklahoma (42 percent) and Oklahoma State (34 percent). Missouri leads the league with 66 percent.
Those numbers are for athletes in the freshman class entering school for the 1992-93 school year. The NCAA gives students six years to graduate.
Buskirk cited two factors that led to the decline -- a small class to start with, and a large number of transfers.
Buskirk said the 1992-93 class numbered 60 athletes. Of those 60 athletes, 11 transferred to other schools, and the NCAA immediately penalizes the school from which the athletes transferred, even if they graduate from another school. Thus, transfers accounted for an immediate 18.3 percent drop.
"We did some number-crunching," Buskirk said. "We're not proud of 43 percent, and we need to improve that. But it's our obligation to go into the numbers to see where we went awry. We saw two things in particular that stuck out.
"First, our transfers out of the institution figured much higher than normal. And men's sports, other than football and baseball, were a much lower percentage than we're accustomed to."
The NCAA breaks graduation rates into eight categories for athletes. Of that 1992-93 class, Kansas' graduation numbers were: baseball, 60 percent; men's basketball, no figure since there were no scholarship freshmen in that class; men's cross country and track, 50 percent; football, 31 percent; all other men's sports combined, 27 percent; women's basketball 33 percent, women's track and cross country 50 percent; all other women's sports combined, 60 percent.
"That 27 percent was a red flag for us," Buskirk said. "That's a much lower number than we're used to."
So is the 43 percent overall rate, which pales compared to KU's all-student graduation rate of 54 percent.
But Buskirk is convinced the latest numbers were a spike on the graph, and he uses another NCAA number as evidence. In addition to the 1992-93 numbers, the NCAA combined the 1992, '91, '90 and '89 classes in an effort to iron out abnormalities.
Kansas' graduation rate for those four classes combined: 52 percent for athletes, 55 percent for all students.
"To me, that's a way of evening out the bumps," Buskirk said. "That 52 percent makes me feel a lot better. The '92 class didn't fare well as a class, but that gives me faith that it was a one-year spike. If we see it again, then that's something else.
"We haven't done projections yet for '93, but my gut would tell me that we'll do a whole lot better than 43. I'd like to think so."
-- Andrew Hartsock's phone number is 832-7216. His e-mail address is ahartsock@ljworld.com.
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